Meet Ben and Kassie Wilson

We recently connected with Ben and Kassie Wilson of Goldpine and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Ben, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?
Both of us have gravitated toward music from a young age. I (Ben) started writing poetry around 12 years old. I wanted to write about interesting thoughts that I had, thoughts that I wanted to make known to other people. I was hoping that my words might help make another person think in a way that they’ve never thought before….that they might might ponder on ideas that they’ve never stopped to explore before. I loved the idea of expanding someone’s thoughts through art. So, for me, art had a motive. For Kassie, there was a similar process, but hers had to do with pain and sorrow in life. Kassie has gone through a lot of loss in her life, alot of situations of grief. And those types of things are what inspires her to write the most. She knows that she can connect with the listener through those situations that she writes about, because so many people have encountered grief. One song in particular, called ‘My Favorite Parts of You’, reminisces about Kassie at a young age with her mother, and the songs brings the listener into the present day, where her mother has already passed away, and all throughout Kassie’s own actions remind her of her mother’s ways. It is a story of beauty and grief .

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
My wife, Kassie, and I make up the Nashville Americana duo Goldpine. We are “aggressive Americana”, with “vocals like a pipe organ”, as someone once described. Our main focus is touring. We are nearly always somewhere in the US performing a show at listening rooms, festivals, and house concerts. The live show is what we love most….it is a place where we can connect with people through melodies, stories, and casual conversation. There are quite a few exciting things happening for us in the near future. One of them is that we’ve got a new record coming out on Sept 8…and that record is all songs we’ve written. A lot of those songs are about thing that have been heavy on my heart in the last couple years…..for instance, one of the singles “Thinking About Love” explores the distorted definition of love that we have taken on as Americans. It is a song that hopes to bring people back to a true meaning of love – which focuses on the benefit of another person. This new record will be out in vinyl format – a WHITE vinyl too! Another exciting thing happening is that we will be an official showcasing artist at Americanafest in Nashville this year. This is a dream for us, and we cannot wait to be a part of it. Beyond that, we will have the opportunity to sing the national anthem at an NFL football game this year (although we can’t announce which game yet). We’ve been practicing the anthem at all our live shows recently! It will be a blessing for us to perform it at the game!

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
First off, I would have to say that learning about the process of booking live shows was one of the most impactful things in our career. We do have a booking agency (Cumberland Music Collective), but I also have been booking our live shows for many years now. Knowing how to email a talent buyer correctly, and how and when to follow up, as well as proper email etiquette has been a game-changer for us. Not having to solely rely on another entity to book our tours has been really nice (and a lot of work!) and gives us a lot of freedom. Secondly, learning how to build out our tour van was instrumental in our career. We used to tour the country in a Volkswagen Jetta. But, since I had a construction background, I tried my hand at building out a cargo van into a tourvan (or basically a camper van)….and it has streamlined our touring. No longer do we have to purchase $75 hotel room every night (not to mention the stress of booking the hotel, and moving all our stuff in and out of the room), and no longer do we have to be constrained on where to stay. The tour van allows us to drive as long as we want, and then just pull over and sleep as long as we want. A lot less stress this way. Thirdly, my audio engineering education has helped us tremendously in our career. Back in 2006, I went to SAE audio engineering school. That knowledge has been vital to our live shows. I don’t have to rely on random sound guys in order to pinpoint offending audio frequencies. Countless times, I’ve used my audio knowledge to get a sound system working correctly on the road, or troubleshoot an audio problem during sound check.

My advice to those who are early in their musical journey is this…invest in yourself. Specifically, I mean that you should learn the skills (at least moderately) that will help you be more self-sufficient. Do the work and research to be more independent. It’s not bad to have others help you, but they will be more willing to help (and more helpful!) if they see that you are doing the work to be self-sufficient. You are the only one responsible for how your career goes.

Do you think it’s better to go all in on our strengths or to try to be more well-rounded by investing effort on improving areas you aren’t as strong in?
I love this question. I’ve grappled with the answer for years, in regular life! But an interesting answer to this question is that idea of partnering up with another person who has strengths that you don’t have. Kassie and I have a lot of opposite strengths and weaknesses. I am strong in organization (where Kassie is weaker)….but Kassie is strong in social connections (where I am weaker). And there are countless others to mention. It’s amazing, because we can both focus on our strengths and get everything covered! Kassie does all of the social media stuff, and I do the booking. Kassie thinks ‘bigger’ and outside the box, and that really helps me when I get stuck. I keep to a schedule and think long-term, and that really helps Kassie, who might not be ready for what’s next. It would be VERY hard for either of us to do any of this music career on our own. Honestly, we probably wouldn’t do it if we were alone. It’s just entirely too much. If someone is out there trying to build a music career, I suggest thinking about teaming up with another person with a completely different personality and strengths than you. It makes such a powerful team!

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Image Credits
Tom Egenes, Raechel Curtis, Jessica Katherine, Emily Frances Ellis MFA, Jose Guerrero-Galvan

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